Read Homecoming for Free Online

month?”
    My smile widened. “Light it up, Uncle John.”
    The binding circle was currently only half done. Anyone could walk in or out. In effect, it hadn’t been turned “on.” That changed the moment Uncle John struck the match and flicked it into the third circle.
    As the fire started to circle, the magic started to spiral from one layer to the next. Each ring of the spell added its own unique energies. Fire, water, a ring of quartz, tree branches, and some I couldn’t see. I had seen glimpses of Enochian, some Latin, and even some Sanskrit scratched into the packed dirt of the field when I first stepped inside.
    â€œWow, you really went all out.”
    His reply was distorted, warped like there was a curtain of water between us. “It’s even got an infinity charm,” he said, sounding far too smug. “Anything you throw at it will only make the bindings stronger.”
    â€œAnd this’ll really trap anyone stupid enough to walk into it?”
    â€œSlacker nephews, demons, and anything in between,” he confirmed. “Are you ready?”
    I glanced around one more time, still not seeing the flaw that would get me out of this. Uncle John had been teaching me all about magic circles and their many purposes for the last month. Summer was winding down, and lessons outside would be fewer and farther between.
    He preferred the outdoors, and not just because he was a nature lover. Magic that went awry was a lot easier to contain if it didn’t have walls to incinerate or a roof to tear through.
    My magic, in particular.
    â€œI’m not a slacker,” I said, hoping to buy myself some time.
    He threw back his head and laughed. The fact that the distortion between us made him sound like a hyena was comforting. “When’s the last time you wrote in your journal?”
    My journal, the bane of my existence. Uncle John was all about the organization. The house had to be perfectly in order, the refrigerator had to be stocked just so, and every spell had to be documented. How you cast it, what you cast, what tools you used. I could only imagine the indescribable glee he’d gotten from note-taking each stage of the jail-cell circle.
    â€œOh, come on!”
    â€œEveryone else does it,” he said.
    â€œSo if everyone else jumped off a building, I should, too?”
    His retort was almost instantaneous. “Well, if someone had written down the gravity-countering spell like they were told, that question would be rhetorical, wouldn’t it?”
    â€œLike every other witch out there spends hours writing out all their spells.”
    The smile eased back and he got serious again. “Quit stalling.”
    â€œI’m not stalling!”
    â€œBraden!”
    Fine.
    I looked down, one last time, looking for the flaw. But nothing jumped out at me. If I was any other witch, Uncle John’s binding would have trapped me perfectly.
    Good thing I wasn’t like other witches. I pulled off my sunglasses and heard my uncle shout “Noooo!” before my eyes cleared and my vision exploded.

    two
    There was a moment where time seemed to fracture, a crystalline snapshot of the world where Uncle John had started raising his arm, his face full of fear and alarm. Where motes of sunlight lay poised above me, and the westerly breeze was tangible and tangled up against my skin. It was as if the world around me had called a time out.
    Then the landscape expanded into something larger than four dimensions, the binding boiled itself down to an alphabet of magic, and the visions swallowed me up.
    So many hunters, tracking weary feet on sullen soil brown with disappointment and impotence. The animals avoided this place of strange magic; ancient ways worked into the stone down to the very bedrock. Silver songs under the full moon, dark music of the fallen things when the sky grew dark. And a man, hiding and running and running and hiding. His fear soaked up into